A near-30 minute cluster was best summed up by El Phantasmo during Shingo Takagi’s entrance into the match late on.
As listless wars were waged on the outside, ELP briefly checked in with the English commentary team to joke about how nobody knew what was going on and how great it all was.
Neither statement was incorrect or entirely untrue, even if most of the match was mostly trash. The Ranbo was as big a load of b*llocks as usual, at times impossible to keep on top of and almost never coming close to feeling like something that actually mattered to the competitors. It was rubbish, and just occasionally charmingly so.
Toru Yano and The Great O-Khan made the final four by actively avoiding action, Sho did too and Takagi’s place was assured pretty much the second he arrived as the contest’s biggest star by orders of magnitude.
Those four will compete for the Provisional 2023 KOPW Championship at New Year Dash, though the typically knockabout booking didn’t exactly encourage anybody to follow them.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett
